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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

"The sun shining in my dreams The light is getting hot Saved by eternity I have seen death so close Away, awhile the angels crossed the sky But I'm condemned to stay here." -- Heavenly

In his memoirs, Paul
Naschy said he had referred Argentine film directing stalwart Leon Klimovsky to be director of his
seminal Spanish horror classic La noche
de Walpurgis, AKA The Werewolf
Versus the Vampire Woman (1971), because one of the film’s financers wanted
a quick and reliable director.

It would seem that Klimovsky was known for his fast shooting and workmanlike skills,
and yet he managed to direct some real atmospheric classics of Spanish horror, often on
low budgets and high pressured shooting schedules, and he introduced an oft-imitated
technique of filming vampires and zombies in slow-motion, capturing a uniquely
nightmarish plane of existence in the process.Klimovsky’s vampire films are exceptional and interestingly varied,
and they belong alongside the best of Jess
Franco and Jean Rollin. The
aforementioned The Werewolf Versus the
Vampire Woman was a record breaking box office success that revived the
Spanish horror fantasy genre. The other Klimovsky
directed vampire films that followed were the epic The Dracula Saga (1973), the more grindhouse flavored The Vampires’ Night Orgy (1974), and the
romantic, adventurous, and somewhat eclectic Night of the Walking Dead / The Strange Love of the Vampires,the topic for tonight